The Corsica Project
by Kazeninoru
Summary: September 14th, 1996. Two years before the events of the famed 'Mansion Incident', Umbrella began a test of the early stages of the T-Virus, utilizing a scenario much like the future Raccoon City incident, taking place in a small town called Corsica.
1. Prologue: Corsica 1996

**The Corsica Project**

**Prologue: Corsica; 1996**

There was nothing particularly noteworthy about Corsica. In the typical tradition of smaller cities, it boasted a relatively small population at best, being home to no more than a few thousand people; the vast majority of which happened to be residents who had lived there for many generations. Nestled amongst relatively low lying mountains and thick forests, blanked by the deep green of regional oak trees, the town proper consisted of a fairly short strip of shops, as well as official town offices all lined up on a single street. Larger facilities, such as the local hospital and community college, were settled here and there amongst the hills that surrounded the town, set up in such a way to prevent the townsfolk from feeling distaste in everything being too closely crammed together. Residential homes were much the same as the larger businesses, such as the local mega mart, sparsely hidden on small drives amongst the hills, the diminutive population allowing for everyone to have their own fair amount of space. Very few of the townsfolk lived on Main Street, save those who owned shops there, such as the owner of the long standing Chinese restaurant, Mr. Huan; a fellow whose name few could pronounce despite the many years he had dwelled in Corsica. It wasn't the sort of quaint place where everybody knew one another's name, but it was relatively close and as such boasted a peaceful existence.

Being so small a town, despite how spread about in the mountains it happened to be, it was not easily found on a map of the local area, easily overshadowed by the nearest metropolitan areas, the most noteworthy of which happened to be Raccoon City, though Stone-ville was much closer. Corsica managed to survive well enough without being so heavily immersed amongst the usual bustling economy, the tiny city making most of its money during the fall months by drawing in hikers and campers when the foliage became an alluring mix of vivid crimson and brilliant gold. Despite the colder winter month, it was rare for snow to fall amongst the mountain town, though the few paved roadways amongst the hills became deadly hazards with the spreading of slick ice. It was just before the arrival of the lackluster winter season, when the colorful leaves had fallen and the tourists had moved on, that a few unusual yet easily overlooked occurrences began to take place. With the slow plummeting of temperatures and the promise of potentially hazardous weather, given that there had been innumerable automobile accidents throughout January of that year, the city counsel seemed to initiate certain lengths to fortify the town in case of a harsh winter. White vans began to fill the streets, workers from an unknown power company hauling themselves up the high telephone poles, supposedly securing the power lines to prevent outages. It seemed like a valid enough excuse for the peculiar works presence in Corsica, so no one seemed to bat an eye, leaving the men in their black coveralls to toil as they saw fit.

As a preventative measure, the physicians at the local hospital began to urge their patients as of late August to allow flu vaccinations. With so small a community and much larger cities being relatively far away, the citizens did not want to allow for any risks of a continually spread sickness to be passed around the town, so few, if any of the townsfolk refuted the advice of their doctors. By the beginning of September, all of the white trucks moving throughout Corsica's quit streets all, but disappeared. The anticipated illnesses doctors had anticipated showed no signs of growing, though a slim few individuals appeared to develop small and altogether brief colds; nothing that anyone took seriously. All seemed to be well in Corsica, the little city immersed in the normalcy that always existed there. It was not until the day of September, 14th, early in the growing light of a cold dawn, that the beginnings of an unanticipated nightmare began.

It was the day that would mark the end of Corsica.

**End of Prologue**

Author's Note: And so begins the **Corsica Project. **I hope you all come to enjoy this story. I wanted to try something taking place before the events of any of the games, seeing what would have happened had Umbrella had control over a scenario like what happened in Raccoon City, though on a much smaller scale. There will be a lot of horror, action, and drama in this little story, though I'm sorry to say that any of the characters from the series will more than likely not be present, the cast being made up of all original characters. Series characters will, at best, make very brief cameos and probably not interact with any of the OC characters. I hope you enjoy this piece anyway. I'll have chapter one up as soon as possible.


	2. Chapter 1: 10:23 PM

**Chapter 1: 10:23 P.M.**

The evening shift was quite possibly the closest potential example of what purgatory could feel like which Amy ever expected to experience. She had always wondered, at least over the course of the pasts seven months or so, why it was necessary for a tiny little 'speck on the map' town like Corsica to have a mega store open for twenty four straight hours. Business in Mania Mart tended to become about as slow as a ninety year old tortoise on a hot highway after nine o'clock in the evening and, as luck would have it, she more often than not worked the later shift on weekends. While not a young woman prone to complaining, particularly when there was hardly anything entertaining to do on a Saturday night in Corsica, Amy had to feel the compulsion to mentally grip about how utterly loathsome her job could be. Working was much less stressful when she didn't have to worry about tending to a long slew of easily irked customers, but she would have preferred a rush of work to the dull, slow moving hell she found herself in, standing behind her register with her eyes persistently turning towards her wrist watch.

"Just ten more minutes," she heard herself muttering, knowing that such a minuscule amount of time was certain to pass much too slowly.

She remembered how her mother often chided her for being so terribly impatient, telling her time and again that a watched pot never boils, though hearing such a phrase hardly did anything to improve her unforbearing personality. The young woman took to fiddling somewhat idly with the ends of her hair, feeling a relative sense of disinterest towards the brown strands, merely needing something to do with her hands, perhaps as a preventative measure to avoid glancing at the watch on her thin wrist. There were few lanes open at that point in time, no more than two others far off down the length of the store front, so she couldn't very well make conversation with the other cashiers. Given that management was somewhat busy with other things during the later hours of the evening, the cashiers had a bit more freedom to be a bit more lax and she could see Brian down the way listening to his CD player. She wished she'd thought to bring her own. The overhead speakers were faintly belting out the dull oldies her grandparents tended to enjoy and she was reminded very much of elevator jingles. She truly was in hell, wasn't she? It wasn't purgatory she was trapped in. It was simply hell. Though she had to decide that it was no worse than her first period math class. Maybe it wasn't so bad for it to be the weekend, after all. It was better to dust an already clean register than toil over a complicated equation with a sleepy consciousness in any case.

"Hey, Amy! Ready to go?"

Hearing the familiar voice of her current supervisor, Amy's slightly slouched posture straightened as she drew a moist rag across the spotless conveyor belt at her register, glancing over her shoulder at the oncoming figure walking towards her with expectant hope in her eyes.

"Amelia, if you aren't teasing me, I might kiss you."

"Try to restrain yourself, sweetie. I'm a married woman. And yes, you can go home. It's 10:23, but since we're so slow I'm gonna let you off a few minutes early."

"I honestly do love you, Amelia. In all seriousness, I'm bringing you cookies on Friday."

"Make it chocolate chip and I might start loving **you**. Go clock out, kiddo."

The seventeen year old had no complaints about the brief pat on the head her supervisor gave her, hardly minding the gesture given the almost maternal nature Amelia tended to have towards her teenage coworkers, acting every bit like a mother or teacher in the work place. Despite being a fairly young woman herself, somewhere in her early thirties while looking nothing like it, Amelia had that sort of guiding demeanor that Amy had felt able to rely on since she'd started her job at Mania Mart. While she'd learned the ropes of working at the massive store rather quickly, it had been the first job her parents had allowed her to have and she'd been very nervous taking it up. Mrs. Merit had been a very helpful role model since day one and it definitely helped to have such a laid back person continually guiding her along. The brunette stepped out from behind her register, logging out of the machine as Amelia flipped off the numbered light for her lane, bidding the woman a quick goodbye as she drew off the badge she'd been wearing around her neck, walking rather briskly towards the back of the store. The thick heels of her brown work boots made a fair clamor along the mundane linoleum beneath her feet, echoing down the many isles that surrounded her on all sides, the lack of present customers making the whole place seem completely dead. She could faintly hear the distant sound of a floor buffer being worked somewhere in the vicinity of the freezer section in the grocery half of the establishment. Issac, a hard of hearing fellow who commonly took up cleaning duties during the later hours of the evening, was probably just as anxious to finish his work and head home as she had been a few moments ago. She inwardly wished him a quick night on the job and an easy rest upon his homecoming, given that she knew he tended to suffer from fairly bad back pains now and again.

Amy was completely delighted to see the time clock as she pushed through a set of tarnished, silver double doors leading to the storage areas typically kept restricted from customers. Given how few employees happened to be present at that late hour, she had no real difficulty picking out her time card from the rest and punching out with a particularly content little grin drawing at her lips. How wonderful it felt to finally be free, though given that she'd only worked a measly six and a half hour shift that night, Amy realized she more than likely had no real room to be complaining. Either way, her formerly dapper spirits had been greatly lifted and she allowed herself to stroll almost leisurely back towards the front of the store, tossing her car keys upwards to continually catch them again and again as she moved along. It had probably gotten fairly cold outside and the car Amy possessed, a rather nondescript little red Saturn that was at least three years old, no longer had a functioning heating system, so she prepared herself to be very cold, cursing the lack of forethought to have brought a jacket with her to work. Crossing her arms before her chest, Amy began to prepare herself for the chill she anticipated feeling, glancing towards the check out aisles as she made her way towards the automated glass doors, pausing for a moment to arch a brow at a rather peculiar sight. Neither Brian nor Amelia were present at their work stations, both of them standing together, much too close for a married woman and a single man, the brunette feeling her jaw drop as she gawked at Brian's back, seeing his head seeming to slightly swivel, neck bent forward in a way that made it fairly obvious that his face was settled against Amelia's neck. Shocked by the proof of this unknown affair and having no desire to witness anymore of it, Amy began to move towards the exit again, racing much faster than she had before.

In her shocked and altogether mortified haste, she hadn't realized that the doors seemed to be malfunctioning until she nearly ran headlong in to them, coming to a standstill before the tightly sealed glass barriers. It was highly uncommon for the doors to suffer any sort of malfunction, particularly given that the night shift allowed for maintenance workers to get their jobs done, so Amy found herself standing before the motionless barricades with an arched brows and comically flapping arms, as if the persistent motion might urge them to open. Hardly any sort of technical genius and feeling her impatience to return home from before coming back, Amy paced back and forth, waiting for the damned doors to just open already. After a mere few moments, she could tell that her efforts were futile, no doubt looked utterly ridiculous, and felt inspired to groan her discontent, knowing that she would have to mention the malfunctioning entrance way to her superior, who had been rather busy a few moments ago.

"Well...this is only going to be incredibly awkward..."

Whirling around with a sigh, awaiting the inevitable discomfort that was sure to come with interrupting the romantic moment her two coworkers were having so openly, Amy headed away from the entrance and back towards the check out lanes, making a beeline for the pair she'd passed before. Loath as she was to make her presence known whilst the two were so obviously locked in a close, intimate embrace, Amy didn't particularly think either would be happy to get in trouble if a customer potentially came across them at such a time nor did she want the malfunctioning doors to be left untended. Drawing to a halt a good few steps behind Brian, she stared at the pair, barely being able to see Amelia at all, grimacing with a bit of red faced embarrassment to see Brian's crown of black hair still moving about. The man was very obviously in to literal necking, wasn't he? Rubbing her upper arms before crossing them, Amy cleared her throat to get her coworkers' attention.

"Uhm...I don't want to interrupt or anything, but...yeah...there's something wrong with the front doors. They don't want to open, so it might be a good idea to let one of the maintenance guys know."

Brian's bent posture straightened at her words and Amy heard two quiet yet distinctive sounds; the plopping of something dripping on to the floor and the smacking of lips a person tended to make while they were eating a hearty meal, wondering if the twenty-seven year old fellow was trying to make a joke of his encounter with his supervisor just to add further to the embarrassment the teenage girl was feeling at present. The brunette jolted slightly as the heavy sound of Amelia's body smacking the floor resounded with a loud, meaty smack, brown eyes draw wide as she looked past Brian to see the woman laying there, unmoving in a steadily spreading puddle of vivid crimson. Amelia's eyes were open wide, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, her throat a violent mess of torn flesh; an open cavity ripped apart by the continual tugging of feasting teeth. Caught in a state of silent horror, mute disbelief, Amy shook at the horrific image before her, eyes darting up to Brian as he turned to face her ever so slowly, in the most menacing of ways. His typically green eyes were a pale blue, almost entirely white, and utterly vacant, though his expression appeared to have the faintest hint of rage with how deeply furrowed his brows were. Chunks of thick meat were caught between his teeth, his mouth and chin, all the way down to his neck covered in Amelia's blood, clothing soaked with it so that the pale blue shirt he'd been wearing had been tarnished to a mottled shade of red. The headphones he'd had attached to his CD player were still upon his ears, slightly lopsided, the metal connector hanging before his chest without the media device joined with it anymore, as if he'd merely stepped away from his register and hadn't had the mind to pick it up. It was no doubt broken against the hard floor beside his station.

Disbelief transformed in to fright as Brian lifted his arm, stretching his slightly curved fingers out towards her, crescents of red visible beneath his short nails. He moved towards Amy at a slow gait, his steps seeming to wobble slightly, though he never lost balance, his milky eyes trained stoutly upon her, supposedly settled on a new objective; a fresher meal. Glancing mournfully at Amelia's motionless form, too terrified to move to her side and see if there was any chance she might potentially still be clinging to life, Amy did what her instincts, or rather her terror, told her to do. She turned and ran away. Panting as her boots resounded thunder to the high ceiling, the confused youth made her way towards the entertainment section near the back of the story, intending to search out a fellow named Michael who usually restocked the video shelfs at that hour of the night, intent on warning him that Brian had quite apparently lost his mind and attacked Amelia. What could she tell him, though? She had no clue what was wrong with Brian, unable to discern the cause of his sudden violence, other than to perhaps assume that he might have been on some type of drug, of which variety she couldn't possibly know. She'd never done any of those kinds of things herself, so she was completely uncertain at that point in time, knowing only that she desperately wanted help, unable to bear being alone in the building with a man who appeared to have gone off the deep end.

"Michael! Michael, where are you?! Brian's gone nuts! Michael!"

Amy didn't care how much of a ruckus she was making, how much her shouts might have alarmed her coworkers or irritated them, too intent on offering up her warnings to care about any sort of calm, rushing down an aisle amongst large TV screens and shelves lined with video cassettes, panting more due to her fright than any actual physical fatigue from running, stopping at then end of the aisle, hearing a familiar sound. She could detect the continual hum of the floor buffing machine, the lack of faint scuffing across the floors allowing her to figure out that the large device was currently sedentary, unmoving and the most startling sense of dread she thought she'd ever felt washed through her, causing the girl to peak around the corner very slowly, unable to push away the fear she felt bumping blood so swiftly through her veins. A hand flew up to cover her mouth, attempting a futile effort of silencing the gasp she'd been unable to restrain, watching Michael as he knelt there on the ground, tearing through poor Issac like a person might devour a Thanksgiving meal, devouring the bloody intricacy of the older man's innards. It was a display so grotesque that Amy had to turn away lest the bile rising up in her throat would have caused her to vomit, moving back around the corner and taking several steps away, leaning against one of the shelves at her side, trying to calm down the nausea caused by the grotesque display. Her arms were shaking, eyes beginning to faintly water with the threat of tears, unable to discern or comprehend what was happening to everyone, why they were all seeming to go completely mad, scared out of her wits to the point that she nearly felt able to cry, uncertain of what to do. Looking backwards over her shoulder, she hear the shuffling of slow moving feet, watching with ragged breath caused by budding panic as Michael shambled around the corner, his blank stare settled upon her.

"Another meal? Screw that..."

It didn't matter how terrified she was at that moment. Amy knew for a simple fact that she did not want to die and certainly not to become a meal for coworkers who had seemingly gone completely mad. Rather than stand still like a moron and allow herself to be eaten, she willed her body back in to motion and began to run away from Michael's sluggish pace, formulating a plan as she moved. Heading to the nearby sporting goods section, the young woman grabbed the first baseball bat she could get her hands on, settling for an aluminum bat given that they could be swung faster and didn't break like a wooden one might, gripping the handle tightly in one fist. Her path had already been decided the moment she'd picked up her defensive weapon, deciding that escape was her new objective when she had no clue how many more of her coworkers had become crazed animals. As she'd anticipated, the automatic doors to the garden center were left open, delivery trucks more often than not coming through that part of the store at night to deliver a variety of plants, racing out in to the dimly lit space, smelling the freshness of the flowers without having any mind to admire the sweet fragrances, still swarmed by the memory of blood. The fences were locked shut, much to her dismay, leaving her with no other option than to climb over them, rather thankful that the mesh canopy settled over the garden center wasn't fully tethered to the tops of the gates, giving her enough space to slip through and get over. Pushing her bat with some difficulty beneath the metal blockade, Amy began to climb as fast as she possibly could, the chain link fence feeling like ice beneath her fingertips due to the chill of the night air. The top of the gate scratched lightly at her stomach as she slowly pulled her body over it, the material of her light blue work t-shirt catching on the grooves now and again, having to stop to yank the cloth free before she managed to get to the other side. Holding her breath, she dropped down to the ground, landing on her feet rather gracefully despite her continued fright, turning to find her baseball bat, drawing it up in to her grasp once more.

The garden center brought her out to the side of the store, where it was much too dark for her to feel anything, but unsettled, moving swiftly across the marked pavement towards the well lit front parking lot, heading in the direction where she knew her car had been parked. If there had ever been a time when she'd been genuinely glad to see her slightly beat up little Saturn and the oil stains it always left in her parking spot it was at that moment, rushing towards it as fast as her slightly weak knees would allow. She began to slow down, seeing a few people walking around her vehicle, coming to a pause as she began to take in her surroundings, suddenly losing the hope she'd felt herself gaining. In the wide stretch of open space and spread about vehicles, she was the only person moving at a normal pace, the slowly moving crowds of swaying bodies all seeming to set their sights on the young woman, moving at gradual paces in her direction. Unable to count their numbers, seeing her car surrounded as much as she was becoming, Amy began to feel her terror coming back full force, trying to sort out a path to her car without getting to close to any of the people headed her way, clutching her weapon in both hands, feeling the determination she had waining at the sight of how many of the townsfolk suffering the mentally debilitating condition Brian and Michael had shown her. The best option she felt she had at present was to make use of the melee weapon she'd stolen and take down anyone who came to close to her, clear her own path to her car even though the odds seemed rather stacked against her; one young woman against far too many crazed attackers.

"Jesus...I'm so screwed..."

Amy had her game plan, for the most part, but working her body in to moving seemed to be an impossible feat at that moment, all of her limbs feeling frozen by the cold air, hands shaking; threatening to lose the grip she had on the baseball bat she was clutching so dearly, as if her life truly depended on it. She swallowed a breath, holding it deep within her chest and feeling it like the weight of a brick inside her body, swinging the bat in a slightly upwards arch the moment one of the crazy bastards dared to get too close, screeching as she felt her weapon strike home. Apparently, she probably ought to have invested in baseball, thinking she might have had one hell of a home run on her hands had she been playing America's favorite past time rather than fighting for her very life, watching the unrecognizable man fall to the ground in a twitching, moaning heap. Her fingers were still twitching yet she refused to let her grip waver, taking a few steps forward and another swing, striking a fairly obtuse woman against the side of her neck. Amy screamed, feeling fingers gripping at her pant leg, bringing her bat down on the first assailant she'd taken down, almost inspired to whimper when she struck his skull, feeling a sickening splatter of blood spraying across the front of her shirt and the tops of her arms. The woman she'd attacked a mere moment before that was slowly rising back to her feet, making Amy wonder how much harder she had to hit these people to take them down, stepping backwards as others came closer to her, panting in her growing panic.

The blaring of a horn sounded over her own tumultuous heartbeat pounding like drums in her ears, looking beyond her oncoming attackers to see a swiftly moving blue truck headed in her direction, flinching when the driver began to plow down the peculiar stalkers without mercy or apparent car, tires screeching as the vehicle drew to a swift stop a mere few paces before her, the right front tire resting atop the very woman who had been coming back at her. Staring like a deer caught in headlights, the analogy not too terribly far off given the brown shade of her eyes, the passenger door of the cab thrown open. A young man, perhaps no more than a year older than her if he was not the exact same age, jumped out of the running truck and set his sights on her, staring towards her from behind a crop of black bangs, a smear of what appeared to be dried blood across one of his cheeks.

"Get in! Hurry up!"

Amy had no time to consider her options or question the young man, hardly even taking the time to glance around the parking lot, her own vehicle now forgotten in the wake of discovering other people who still appeared to be as sane as she still was. Clutching her bat to her chest, she moved past the fellow with his arm extended out towards her, having no mind to refute it when his hand pressed against her back to urge her inside the cab faster. She slid across the faux leather bench seat, giving no extra thought to buckling her seat belt as she turned to glance at the driver of the vehicle, watching him take a drag from the cigarette poised between his lips, eyes settled straight ahead out the wind shield.

"Move it or lose your ass, kid," he barked in a low, almost gravelly voice.

The male passenger slipped inside, cramming Amy's smaller body between their two larger ones, the breath she'd started holding however long ago as the door slammed shut, a foot hitting the gas pedal as, with tires squealing and bodies hitting the bumper, the truck fled from the parking lot.

**End of Chapter 1**

Author's Note: This was a bit of a short chapter, but I really wanted to get things started, so I promise chapter two will be longer than this. Hope it was an exciting enough beginning for you all, though. Be sure to be on the look out for the rest of the cast in future chapters.


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